With Black Friday/Cyber Monder coming up, I'm thinking of getting a solar charging set up for my new-to-me 18' catboat. The boat has a U1 battery sealed AGM, 35 or 40 AH. This is enough for about 2 days of phone charging, depth/fish finder, and CPAP use. There is not enough room for a bigger battery so I have 2 that I can swap out if I want to go longer. I'm looking for a cheapish panel & controller that will keep it charged and on the trailer and recharge it during the week. Anything beyond this is a bonus. Suggestions appreciated.
I have had the 50w version of this for 6 years, 5 of those were on an old U1 battery.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCZNZP95/ (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCZNZP95/)
The controller that came originally was a small brick, DIP switches for the settings and without a display. The brick is set to run an LED light in the boat for an hour after sunset.
It stopped working not too long in and the company replaced with another brick no hassle and has worked great since.
I have another panel with the oval controller with the push button and display and I like that one too.
I usually demount the panel when trailer-ing and day-sailing. I will need to look into a mounting system if I go 'cruising' and need to keep the battery up for GPS, nav and anchor lights, etc. Boat is in winter mode so the panel is at the pulpit, outside the cover, faced south and inclined to shed snow, and perpendicular to the sun hanging low in the sky.